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How to Retire Early Making Accelerated Coal Phaseout Feasible and Just “Possible Quote on the Report/Research Topic Here M OUN KY T C A I O N R I N E STIT U T How To Retire Early Making Accelerated Coal Phaseout Feasible and Just “Possible quote on the report/research topic here. Et que prorpos et, consedi dolupta spicid quam nus qui audipit verumet usdandi genima venimagni sandiat iatur? Quia volorror ad quossimet ulpa seque ab il min coraeribus aut repudis esto magnientus, sum nos ea erum es samuscimus mo quodissimus qui ute et landis aut enisque volor alitate essed molupidunt voluptat qui coressin nulparumqui rerem re pa et haria nonsedit dere voluptam vene es eum volorep eribusanim rem est, as explitas sinis essus con con praeperit quunt.” —Name of the person being quoted Authors & Acknowledgments Authors Paul Bodnar, Matthew Gray (Carbon Tracker Initiative), Tamara Grbusic, Steve Herz (Sierra Club), Amanda Lonsdale (Magnitude Global Finance), Sam Mardell, Caroline Ott, Sriya Sundaresan (Carbon Tracker Initiative), Uday Varadarajan (Rocky Mountain Institute and Stanford Sustainable Finance Initiative) * Authors listed alphabetically. All authors from Rocky Mountain Institute unless otherwise noted. Contacts Caroline Ott, [email protected] Matthew Gray, [email protected] Steve Herz, [email protected] Suggested Citation Paul Bodnar, Matthew Gray, Tamara Grbusic, Steve Herz, Amanda Lonsdale, Sam Mardell, Caroline Ott, Sriya Sundaresan, and Uday Varadarajan, How to Retire Early: Making Accelerated Coal Phaseout Feasible and Just, Rocky Mountain Institute, 2020, https://rmi.org/insight/how-to-retire-early. Images courtesy of iStock unless otherwise noted. Acknowledgments This report has benefited from the input of over 60 individuals from over 30 institutions. For a complete list of individuals who informed this report, please see the acknowledgments on pages 54 and 55. Funders The authors thank the following foundations for supporting this work: Bloomberg Philanthropies, European Climate Foundation, Flora Family Foundation, ClimateWorks Foundation, Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Someland Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Yellow Chair Foundation, Bulb Foundation, and Pooled Fund on International Energy. About Us M OUN KY T C A I O N Initiative R arbon Tracker I N E STIT U T About Us Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)—an independent nonprofit founded in 1982—transforms global energy use to create a clean, prosperous, and secure low-carbon future. It engages businesses, communities, institutions, and entrepreneurs to accelerate the adoption of market-based solutions that cost-effectively shift from fossil fuels to efficiency and renewables. RMI has offices in Basalt and Boulder, Colorado; New York City; the San Francisco Bay Area; Washington, D.C.; and Beijing. The Carbon Tracker Initiative is a team of financial specialists making climate risk real in today’s capital markets. Our research to date on unburnable carbon and stranded assets has started a new debate on how to align the financial system in the transition to a low-carbon economy. The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3.5 million members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person’s right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org. Table of Contents Executive Summary .............................................................................................................................................. 6 1. The Economic Case for Phasing Out Coal .............................................................................................11 2. A Three-Part Approach to Finance Coal-to-Clean ............................................................................. 17 3. Financial Instruments to Speed Coal-to-Clean ...................................................................................26 4. The United States: Financial Pathways to Close Coal .....................................................................34 5. Financial Pathways to Close in Global Markets .................................................................................37 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................45 Data and Methodology ....................................................................................................................................47 Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................................................54 Endnotes ...............................................................................................................................................................56 Executive Summary Although coal has long been viewed as the cheapest The total cost of phasing out the global coal fleet way to power the global economy, this is no longer the through efficiently structured financial solutions case. New renewable energy is now cheaper than new is already surprisingly small and shrinking quickly. coal plants virtually everywhere, even before considering Replacing uncompetitive coal with clean energy could coal’s dire health, climate, and environmental impacts. already save electricity customers around the world The cost of renewables has fallen so far that it is already $33 billion in 2020, and these annual savings rise cheaper to build new renewable energy capacity, quickly to $73 billion in 2022 and $136 billion in 2025. including battery storage, than to continue operating 39 Phasing out and replacing the remaining competitive percent of the world’s existing coal capacity.i Based on share of the global coal fleet would require $161 billion a new global analysis—by Rocky Mountain Institute, the in subsidies in 2020,ii with this figure dropping rapidly Carbon Tracker Initiative, and the Sierra Club—of nearly to $84 billion in 2022 and $29 billion in 2025 (see 2,500 coal plants, the share of uncompetitive coal plants Exhibit ES1). In other words, the theoretical net cost to worldwide will increase rapidly to 56 percent in 2022 and society of completing the coal-to-clean transition in to 78 percent in 2025. 2020 would be $128 billion, but this figure drops close to zero by 2022 and generates net financial savings of over $107 billion by 2025.iii Those savings—which already exist for many geographies—can be captured and recycled to support a just transition for workers and communities. These figures do not even account for the social and environmental benefits of reducing carbon dioxide and other coal pollutants. i This analysis defines a coal asset as “uncompetitive” if it costs more to continue to operate than the levelized cost to build and operate onshore wind or solar with four-hour storage rated at half the renewable capacity. The storage was included as a simple way to account for replacement of the capacity as well as the energy provided by a marginal existing coal plant at moderately high penetrations of variable resources. The coal costs are inclusive of any applicable carbon or emissions permits or taxes, but not of any unpriced health or environmental costs, while the renewable and storage costs include clean energy incentives. ii “Phaseout” and “retirement” are used as general terms that encompass different strategies that lead to elimination of expected coal use in the operation of a plant, including transitioning to standby/backup service with little or no (at most, seasonal) expected operation, as well as retirement and decommissioning. iii The cost to replace in a given year is the annual additional cost to customers that would result from replacement of all competitive coal assets with renewable energy and storage in that year. The total net cost in a given year is calculated by subtracting the annual cost savings from the cost to replace. For additional definitions, see the box on page 13. 6 | Rocky Mountain Institute Executive Summary Exhibit ES1 Cost Competitiveness of Existing Coal vs. New Renewables and Storage Cost Competitiveness of Existing Coal vs. New Renewables Plus Storage WORLD 2020 WORLD 2025 1,687 GW (78%) 1,321 GW Competitive (61%) Uncompetitive Competitive Uncompetitive 830 GW (39%) 476 GW Annual Net Cost Annual Net Savings (22%) $128 billion $107 billion $161B $33B $29B $136B Cost to Replace Competitive Coal Savings to Replace Uncompetitive Coal Cost to Replace Competitive Coal Savings to Replace Uncompetitive Coal CHINA 2020 2025 INDIA 2020 2025 1074 GW 234 GW 250 GW (94%) (83%) (85%) 663 GW 479 GW (58%) (42%) 48 GW 45 GW 73 GW (17%) (15%) (6%) $53B $12B $2B $86B $23B $2B $2B $17B Annual Net Cost Annual Net Savings Annual Net Cost Annual Net Savings $41 billion $84 billion $21 billion $15 billion US 2020 2025 EU 2020 2025 187 GW 176 GW 113 GW 113 GW (79%) (83%) (81%) (100%) 49 GW 35 GW 27 GW (21%) (17%) (19%) $1B $10B $1B $9B $1B $10B $0B $21B Annual Net Savings Annual Net Savings Annual Net Savings Annual Net Savings $9 billion $8 billion $9 billion $21 billion Source: RMI How to Retire Early | 7 Executive Summary However, coal phaseout hasn’t kept pace with eroding and investors would have the opportunity to replace economics, and the slow pace of transition is costing coal returns with clean returns
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